Family
by footshooter
Summary: Erik paces the Mansion at night. He knows he can't stay, but he can't bring himself to leave. Everything hurts, and he is so, so tired. He's lost everything too many times, so is building the courage to leave the family he has left before he destroys them too. He's a weapon, and nothing else. He doesn't deserve anything else. He's nothing more than a monster.


As Erik paced the halls he noted with a stab of pain that teenagers were messy. He bent to pick up a book to place it on a windowsill and almost choked, remembering his daughter would never experience school, would never get to meet Charles and be taught to control her powers like the students here. He'd planned for Charles to take her, for him to see her off at the gates in glorious reunion with his old friend. He had wanted Charles to be proud of him.

Instead, now he stays, and paces the halls at night when he can't sleep. He needs to be with Charles after almost killing him again, he needs to repay the man who has saved his life countless times and who asks for nothing in return. He needs someone who understands - someone to scream at and tear into for _daring_ to feel Erik's pain. And Erik does, every time, even though he knows he hit Charles with the full force of _everything_ and in doing so, Charles couldn't help but take a part of Erik with him. And he holds that pain dear, almost cherishes it. Erik knows now that Charles feels _everything_. But he needs to explode, to violently and aggressively lash out, and Charles allows him that, he takes it and he wells up and he no longer says the words _"I know how you feel"_ , but he does. That and more. The pain and the secrets Charles Xavier carries on his shoulders… Erik knows what that has done to him in the past, what _he_ has done to him in the past, but he still screams _"you can't_ possibly _"_ and turns away until he's sobbing and broken and when he is Charles is always there to comfort him.

He doesn't deserve that. He will _never_ be good enough to deserve that.

Erik now understands that happiness is something he can watch from a distance, which is why he won't stay and teach, as much as Charles pleads. He will have to leave, because if he doesn't, anyone and everyone who cares for him here will be ripped apart one by one until he's left alone again and he can't see Charles go. He can't let him leave. The happiness he could feel here amongst his kind will stay tantalisingly out of his reach because he can't teach - he is a weapon and nothing more. He is here solely to destroy and he won't let himself destroy anything else that matters.

If that means being on his own, then so be it.

A cough from behind him caused him to relax his grip on the book in his hand and blink away the tears welling up in his eyes. He spun round, and the boy he'd met all of those years ago with the grey hair and the questionable taste in clothes stood in a doorway, trying to look nonchalant as he leant against the frame.

"Uh, hey. You okay?"  
"I'm fine. You're up late."

Peter shrugged. "I'm not a kid and I don't need lessons. And I can't sleep. Apocalypse does that to you, huh?"

Erik's instant reaction is to bite, but Peter isn't criticising - there is no malice in what he is saying.

"Apocalypse is just the tip of things which give me nightmares," Erik states, wearily. He is tired to the bone, but can't catch any rest. He doesn't think he'll ever sleep again.  
"Fancy a drink?" Peter asks.

Erik once again is about to bite that he doesn't want to talk about any of it, but Peter's eyes shift downwards and Erik notices how red _his_ eyes are. It dawned on him that Peter may need to talk to someone himself, and so he shrugged.

"Sure."

* * *

They head to the kitchen and Erik uncaps a couple of beers. He'd already been drinking with Charles and isn't sure mixing lager and whiskey is such a good idea, but if the whisky itself isn't enough to numb the pain he isn't sure what is.

"I've been speaking to my sister," Peter starts. "Tryna get her to come here with us. She's at college. Like, a regular university. She keeps… Well, I used to call her a witch. Really cool mutation, cooler than mine, but impossible for her to control properly. She could probably rip apart the fabric of time if she wanted to. She brought our hamster back from the dead when she was 7 years old – but I'm worried she's gonna burn the halls down or something."

Erik frowned.

"I've never heard of a mutation like that before."  
"No. Wanda's something else. But the pricks at her college are getting twitchy and I can't help thinking… What if Apocalypse had found her? You were strong enough to say no. I'm not sure if someone got that deep into Wanda's head that she'd ever manage to get back out."  
"Apocalypse didn't improve my powers like Storm or the others. He used something already inside of me to unleash that."  
"Dude, I think he was scared of you."  
"Everyone should be scared of me."  
"That's what my mom said."

Erik took a drink, and let the boys words hang, waiting for him to continue. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach that he knew _exactly_ where it was going. The kid looked a lot like his mother.

"I think… I think when you left you shook her up pretty bad."  
"I-"  
"She was pregnant. She never told you. Brought me and my sister up by herself."  
"I went back. When it was safe, I went back."

Peter's voice cracked.

"Why didn't you stay?"  
"She never told me."  
"So you fucked her again and just left?"  
" _She_ left _me_ that time. She never told me about you, or your sister. I would have-"  
"Lorna's 15 now."

The colour drained from Erik's face.

"Is she…?"  
"Yeah."  
"What can she do?"  
"She's _you_."

Erik stood up and walked away, unable to bear any more.

"Lensherr, you don't get to walk away from me again!"

Erik stopped, and slowly turned back around, his eyes wide and pain etched all over his face.

"Please, sit down."

He returned to the table, almost in a trance, and Peter uncorked another bottle, having drained the first in record time for courage.

"Please tell me about my half-sister."  
"Peter, I can't-"  
"I want to know. Please."

Erik's eyes started to water, and Peter's did too.

"I… She was beautiful. She could talk to animals. I loved her more than anything."  
"What happened?"  
"She… They caught up with me. I saved a man's life."  
"That doesn't sound like you."  
"The factory reported me," he spat. "They came with wooden weapons. I was going to… I agreed to go quietly but Nina, she fought back. She didn't know what she was doing. The police were attacked by a flock of crows. She couldn't help it, she couldn't control herself. She was just a child."

Erik was sobbing between words, and Peter could feel his heart break for the sister he'd never know.

"They shot her, straight through, Magda too. They both died from one arrow."  
"So you killed them?"  
"I'd kill anyone who tried to hurt her. I should have been able to save her. The pain they must have suffered. I just wanted… I did _nothing_ wrong."

He looked up.

"I can't know you, Peter. I can't accept this. If I accept you're my son someone will take you from me."  
"You can't abandon us. You have to help. You have to help Wanda and Lorna before they kill someone. Or before someone kills one of them. I've lost one sister… I never met my baby sister."  
"And I've never met my daughters."  
"Then come with me. We'll pick them up, and we'll bring them here. We're safe here, right?"  
"No one is safe where I am, Peter."  
"Erik, please."

They were silent, and took another drink.

"I would have stayed. I would have looked after you all."  
"I know that now." 

* * *

Charles woke with a start, sensing Erik's discomfort, and figured he was having another nightmare. He couldn't blame him, and although half the household seemed to be having nightmares these days he made it a priority to always be there for his old friend. Even if it led to sniping and verbal abuse, he knew it was needed, he _knew_ it was appreciated.

He got into his chair and headed for Erik's bedroom, but realised partway there that the waves of sorrow were coming from downstairs, and seemed to be mingled with someone else. He wondered if Jean had accidently gotten into Erik's nightmares but her mental signature was pretty distinctive, and this one seemed to mix in with Erik's, mingling together in a way that suggested-

Oh.

Charles wasn't perfect. He did occasionally miss things. He figured Raven and Peter's secrets were things that were from the past. Things he didn't want to dig for. Things too sensitive, too personal… But this was why. It explained why Peter felt so familiar when he met him all those years ago. Why the whole household had felt so familiar.

Charles could hit himself. He wheeled down to the kitchen where they were sitting, hunched over bottles, lamenting the losses they had suffered. Erik looked up when Charles got to the doorway, and his eyes were red and streaked with tears.

"Charles, we need to get my children."  
"Of course. If that's what Peter wants."  
"I want my sisters here. They'll be safe here."

Erik winced at this, and Charles was hit by a tidal wave of "I need to leave". He rolled his way to the table and took the beer Erik shuffled towards him.

"Then we'll do everything we can to convince them."  
"Might have to convince my mom too."

Erik winced again, this time hitting Charles with anger. Charles reached over and squeezed his hand, trying to pass back that it was okay, things would be okay, he knew now and she couldn't stop him from being involved.

"Is this what Raven has been keeping from me? That you're Erik's son."  
"Mystique knew?"  
"Only because she wanted to know why I cared about you so much."

"I think Raven is keeping more than that from us," Erik said, taking another drink.  
"What makes you say that?"  
"There is more than one telepath in this house to be haunted by other people's secrets, Charles."  
"Jean's spoken to you about Raven?"

Erik shrugged again.

"She seems to believe Kurt is Mystique's son. It would explain why she won't stay in the same room as him for more than a minute."  
"And why he's blue…" Peter added.  
"She had a _thing_ with Azazel. Explains the teeth and the tail," Erik spat as Charles cringed.  
"She always was proud of outward mutations…"  
"Have you tapped your way around the world?" Peter asked Erik, part disgusted, part awestruck, sensing his fathers distaste.  
"No."

A knock at the door caused them to jump and glance at each other, stopping the Charles-related comment about to spill from Peter's mouth.

"I'll go."  
"It's okay, Erik."  
"You're in a wheelchair and you've got a broken leg. If it's a threat, I can manage it."

A knife followed him out of the door, and Charles sighed.

…

Erik unclicked the locks and swung open the door without touching it. A woman cowered outside, a bundle in her arms.

"Take," she said in a thick accent.  
"Who-?"  
"Take!"

She thrust the bundle into his arms and her sleeve rolled up, the tattooed numbers on her arm becoming visible. Erik fumbled to keep the bundle of stinking blankets in his arms as he stepped out into the rain after her.

"Hey!"

He was about to follow her when the bundle shifted and moved, and started to sob. Erik was so taken aback that he stopped dead, peeling the blankets back to reveal a baby. He glanced back up but the woman had disappeared into the night. The baby started to scream, so Erik adjusted him in his arms and shushed. The baby opened its eyes and his breath was taken away by how much it looked like Charles. A note was in the buttons of his playsuit, and Erik extracted it and saw Charles' name scrawled onto the front. He put it into his back pocket and looked back down at the baby, who was frowning at him.

"Let's get you inside into the warm," he said to it, and the baby promptly set itself on fire.

"Fuck!" Erik yelled, trying his best to keep hold with his fingertips but pushing the baby as far out from his body and into the rain as he could. The blankets started to catch hold, and the baby laughed as Erik's fingers started to heat up.  
"Fuck! **Charles!** "


End file.
